The Amaranth Saga

The Amaranth Saga is a procedurally generated, interactive fantasy epic. The player can live the life of absolutely anyone in a simulated medieval world, from an impoverished farmer to a mighty warlord. They can raise a family, lead armies, and forge alliances. They may find wealth and power perhaps, or fall victim to violence and treachery.

Part role-playing game and part strategy, The Amaranth Saga will create stories of love, hate, chance and ambition. It is less a videogame and more a living world, of which the player is one small part. They must coexist with peasants, political leaders, family members and subordinates - all with their own motivations and beliefs.

Inspired by diverse influences from the Icelandic Sagas to Tang Dynasty China, The Amaranth Saga seeks to create deep and moving narratives. It represents a novel application of complexity science, artificial intelligence, and computational sociology not yet explored in games.

An early prototype.

Development Plan

The Amaranth Saga comes from nearly a decade of thought, although active development began in 2016. It is a hugely ambitious project which needs careful design and planning. Currently, the goal is to produce a working prototype, demonstrating the power of the technology and justifying funding from the community. This will be approached through a series of experimental games, each testing a different element of the finished product.

Much of the high-level architecture has been designed, and will be built in the coming years. You can see a very basic mockup of the finished product here, although most of the gameplay with be demonstrated in future experiments.

A more recent prototype. The simulation of the game-world was accessed through a console, as the GUI was not yet implemented.